Subscribe to this blog

Follow by Email

Time for Supporters of Trump and Clinton to Face Reality

Supporters of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton seem to be stuck in reality distortion bubbles. This is slightly more pronounced on the Trump side, where outright misinformation is believed. But the Clinton supporters are quick to selectively cite misleading information. Misleading data are only slightly better (and sometimes worse) than wrong information when trying to understand and correct problems.

Trump supporters:

He lost the popular vote. There was no widespread fraud, no mobs of illegal immigrants storming the ballot boxes. He lost, and lost significantly on the raw national popular vote total. (But it is complicated. See notes to Clinton supporters.)

He is the least popular president-elect in the history of polling data. There is no mandate.

He plans to nominate a cabinet that troubles many traditional conservatives, libertarians, and progressives. That's not a way to build bridges when you lack a mandate.

He has a serious problem with facts. You know, that "truthiness" thing that should matter to all of us.

He really did say horrible, terrible, lousy things about various groups and people. He's not a nice person and defending him should be impossible.

Clinton supporters:

She lost the Electoral College well aware of the rules of the election system. Winning big in California, the source of her entire popular vote margin, is problematic because of the state's unusual (insane) run-off election system. Trump supporters have a point when they argue California's voting method skews the national results. (More on that follows below.)

She would have been the least popular president-elect in history had she won. So, don't crow too much about how unpopular Trump is.

She did not lose because of the FBI, WikiLeaks, bad media coverage, Bernie Bros, sexism, or anything other factor. Trump actually won a significant number of two-time Obama voters, so you'd have to consider those voters in your analysis. Democrats had already lost a record number of Senate seats (10), House districts (63), state houses, and state legislatures over the last eight years. The trend for Democrats in general is negative, outside… California. (Seriously. California gained 1.1 million Democratic voters and lost 400,000 Republicans.)

Why is California a problem?

California has a system unlike any other populous state. The primaries are "non-partisan" state-wide, with the top-two candidates for each office appearing on the final ballot. In highly Democratic California, the result in 2016 was a near shut-out of Republicans. No minor party appeared on the ballots for any state-wide office. Only the presidential election is conducted in a way that offers other parties some access.

As Investor's Business Daily notes…

What's more, many Republicans in the state had nobody to vote for in November.

There were two Democrats — and zero Republicans — running to replace Sen. Barbara Boxer. There were no Republicans on the ballot for House seats in nine of California's congressional districts.

At the state level, six districts had no Republicans running for the state senate, and 16 districts had no Republicans running for state assembly seats.

Plus, since Republicans knew Clinton was going to win the state — and its entire 55 electoral votes — casting a ballot for Trump was virtually meaningless, since no matter what her margin of victory, Clinton was getting all 55 votes.

Is it any wonder then, that Trump got 11% fewer California votes than John McCain did in 2008? (Clinton got 6% more votes than Obama did eight years ago, but the number of registered Democrats in the state climbed by 13% over those years.)

If you take California out of the popular vote equation, then Trump wins the rest of the country by 1.4 million votes. And if California voted like every other Democratic state — where Clinton averaged 53.5% wins — Clinton and Trump end up in a virtual popular vote tie. (This was not the case in 2012. Obama beat Romney by 2 million votes that year, not counting California.)

The California election system is broken. It excludes minor parties - and even the second major party - from meaningful participation. Of course voters loyal to those other parties remain home. Why should they go into a voting both and leave a ballot entirely blank? An entire ballot of write-in voting, in an electronic system, is tedious and pointless.

The notion that you must vote or keep quiet is disproved by California's inane system. Economically speaking, it really is a waste of time and energy for most non-Democratic voters to participate in the system. But, Californian's did this to themselves by approving the run-off model for elections. The majority now has a one-party system to lord over all residents.

To ignore California's system when claiming a Clinton popular vote victory (or a Democratic popular vote win in the Senate) is to ignore reality.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

[NOTE Augusut 8, 2017: The marginal and effective U.S. Tax rates mentioned in this 2011 post have been supported by research conducted by Thomas Piketty (Paris School of Economics), Emmanuel Saez (UC Berkeley and NBER), and Gabriel Zucman (UC Berkeley and NBER). These economic researchers are well-respected by progressives. Data are data, though we differ on interpretations. "Income" vs. "Wealth" presents much of the challenge, as wealth accumulates but is not taxed in the United States. Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Estimates for the United States published July 6, 2017, includes the following table:

As the table shows, the effective tax rate for the top 1 percent peaked at 45 percent of income in 1944-45. Unfortunately, the overall revenue intake of the United States kept growing and the burden has been falling most on the bottom 50 percent. Tax increases on the middle and lower classes reduce potential economic growth since these individuals spe…

One good sign from this election year: none of my close friends has made a stink and defriended me for not agreeing with X, Y, or Z and not being a vocal supporter of Candidate A, B, or C.

I never felt embarrassed to have this president and his family represent the United States, despite not agreeing with him on several core issues. For eight years we've had a president with whom I disagree but consider a decent father, good role model, and generally well-intentioned human. (Foreign affairs, generally disappointed by both parties since 2001.)

For eight years, the big change was health care. Did anything else change? I'm not sure. I wish we had seen some Big Bank CEOs in prison (capitalism without the rule of law doesn't work), a reworking of corporate and personal tax systems (simplify, close loopholes, end "targetted" breaks), and a willingness to confront long-term infrastructure issues while interest rates are low.

Do we vote our consciouses? Do we vote pragmatically? Do we vote for our "cause" (party) even when the candidate falls short of our ideals? Why and how to vote are serious questions we should consider. Yet, I'm unconvinced there are "right" answers philosophically.

Myself, I cannot vote for a person with whom I disagree or distrust significantly. That's a moral centering I cannot violate, even when it proves to be less than pragmatic. And in this presidential year, I disagree with and distrust all four major-minor candidates. That's depressing.

David Frum offered "A Guide for Undecided Republicans﻿⁠⁠: Choosing a president isn't easy in this election, but here are three ways a principled conservative might vote."